Would You Like Advertisers Listening to Your Calls?

A new VOIP service being announced today, Pudding Media, will trade free VOIP calls for the privilege of listening in via voice-recognition software and throwing ads to your screen, reports the New York Times. Disgraced Wall Street analyst Henry Blodget...

A new VOIP service being announced today, Pudding Media, will trade free VOIP calls for the privilege of listening in via voice-recognition software and throwing ads to your screen, reports the New York Times.

Disgraced Wall Street analyst Henry Blodget concludes that Pudding is a terrible idea, and I think his last point is the one I'd begin with: PC-based calling is a niche market to begin with. However, I think that this could be a stealth hit with immigrants or students studying here.

Why? Because if there's anything that's going to turn people off of this, it's the possibility that some AI is listening in on their conversations. Yes, this is the same exact technique that Google Mail (GMail) uses, and it will probably turn the same people off.

I suspect, however, that the speech-recognition software is for right now English-only. And that means a student talking to a friend in Taiwan may do quite well in avoiding any ads altogether. And, of course, there's the mumble factor.

Then again, I'd probably ask any employees I had working for me not to use said service, to avoid the legal uncertainties from a "third party" listening in.

Finally, the Times mentions that Pudding is attempting to convince cell-phone carriers to adopt this. How, exactly, will a user view ads on a cell phone if he's holding it to his ear? (Yes, I know there's Bluetooth, but...)